On The Dunk Contest: I watched the dunk contest in the bar of a fancy high-tech driving range in Dallas called Top Golf. There was no volume on at the time but my group of friends provided the necessary audio when we collectively lost our minds (or alternatively booed) the dunks throughout the night. One of the more intriguing aspects of this year’s dunk contest was that the contestants weren’t whittled down through “rounds” that culminated in a one-on-one final between two individuals. Rather, they were all allotted the opportunity to have three dunks apiece. This move deserves applause and hopefully they stick with it in the future. It worked because it helped the contest move at a much more reasonable pace and allowed the participants the security of knowing they didn’t have to stick with a “safe” dunk to move on to the finals. The more risk involved, the more spectacular the event.

Unfortunately there are also two obvious and unavoidable aspects that overshadowed anything good about it. The first was the decision to allow the fans to decide the winner. It makes a ton of sense on paper because this is the age of the internet/YouTube/etc, but I can’t tell you how dreadfully wrong the fans got it by going with Jeremy Evans. The only thing I remember about his performance was a collective nod of the heads after he dunked two alley oop basketballs from teammate Gordon Hayward. It was lessened by the fact that he didn’t convert on his first try. At no point though did we ever lose our minds on one of his attempts—an obvious minimum requirement for any dunk contest champion. It’s time to go back to the celebrity/former player judging panel and live with their terribly biased decisions, if only to save the fans from themselves.

The most glaring problem of all though is the lack of star power in the dunk contest. I applaud the efforts and bravery–it takes a remarkable amount of fortitude to put yourself out to the world like that in front of your peers with the risk of becoming the next Chris Andersen—of the participants this year, but there’s really no point in holding it anymore so that the tenth and eleventh best players from various non-contenders can show off their unappreciated athleticism. This point is further emphasized when the very athletes that should be participating in it are sitting front row for the action and making fun of the guys when they can’t convert their attempts (not to mention LeBron blowing every single participant out of the water with his in-game dunks during All-Star game). It would be the cultural equivalent of Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Daniel Day-Lewis, Denzel Washington, Sean Penn, etc sitting in the front row of a theater and falling over themselves laughing while a struggling wannabe actor/waiter from the nearby steakhouse attempted to recite Shakespeare in front of them.

The dunk contest used to be a culturally relevant event. How can it possibly still be worth the time and effort when the casual fan could identify maybe one of the four contestants? Stern needs to drop the hammer and threaten LeBron, D-Wade, etc with the very existence of the event to force them into participating. Get the big boys in or get rid of it all together.

On Dwight Howard: This was a sort of farewell tribute for the league’s best center and I can’t help but feel that he failed to properly recognize the fans in the city of Orlando. He gave an uninspired address prior to the game after deflecting trade rumors all weekend. While he deserves credit for not making this weekend all about himself, he seemed largely disinterested by everything. He didn’t take the game seriously, jacking up several three pointers and largely staying out of the way of his teammates. For a dominant player who can entertain the fans with the best of them (and for the record, please click on that video and watch how much sheer joy Dwight brings out from his peers with his participation in the dunk contest…maybe Stern can get him to broker a deal with the big boys??? These are the thoughts of a basketball-obsessed weirdo…), his effort this year was a major #fail. Cannot wait for his trade drama to be over.

On Kobe’s Nose Getting Broken By D-Wade: Loved it, especially how it wasn’t personal for either of them, strictly business. Move on folks, nothing to see here!

On The Pre-Game Introductions: This is the type of thing that a hard-core basketball blogger would blast me for and where I’m admittedly reading way too much into something so please acknowledge that before proceeding. HOWEVER, was I the only one who noticed the huge contrast between the was the West starters came out of the tunnel as compared to Dwight, Carmelo, and LeBron? No seriously take a look. Here’s the West (move the clip to the 5:00 mark):

And here’s the three stooges from the East making fools of themselves on national television (move the clip to the 4:45 mark):

I don’t mean to keep criticizing, but seriously, take a look at Derrick Rose’s face throughout that second clip to get an idea of the same feelings that were going through my head during that moment. What’s equally hilarious is how you can read the “what-in-the-hell-are-these-idiots-doing” look all over Dwyane Wade’s face. If Derrick Rose’s Bulls knock the Heat out the playoffs, this can be one of the events you point to when you tell your friends you saw it coming. Also creepy is the way Dwight and Melo follow/mimic LeBron’s every move. More on this later.

On The Game Itself: I’m a big fan of the high offense, no defense philosophy that seems to permeate through every league’s respective All-Star game. One thing that is undeniably entertaining though is when the game is close during the final minutes and the best players in the world all start to care about the outcome. We were fortunate this year that LeBron and Wade were able to erase the huge deficit for the East, but in the future I’d like to seriously recommend that the League institute a rule whereby the game has to matter in the last five minutes. There really is nothing quite like seeing the best athletes in the world suddenly want to destroy their peers, solely for bragging rights and respect points. Can we please see this every year?

On LeBron James And The Now Infamous Turnover: Let’s get some points out of the way before proceeding. First, the most intriguing observation of the weekend was made by SB Nation’s Andrew Sharp in just how influential LeBron is on the league right now. Sharp points out that all of the young players in the League now talk, dress, and act like LeBron James. Look no further than that pre-game introduction and how Carmelo and Dwight take all their cues from him. This is a fantastic observation that probably deserves way more investigation and I urge you to read Sharp’s column to get his take.

Moving on though, LeBron James is undeniably the best basketball player alive right now. He was solely responsible for the East’s comeback in that game and it would not have been entertaining at the end had he not put on a dazzling display of talent and athleticism. In fact, he’s probably the most physically gifted athlete ever, in any sport. BUT, and this is perhaps the biggest but in all of sports right now, I can’t help but feel disappointed by him. Every. Single. Time. Always.

Any attempt at a rational explanation is pretty much futile, but that is the feeling I get watching LeBron James. It’s the great debate of basketball right now. Basketball stat nerds and hard-core bloggers are unquestionably in James’ corner and rush to his defense anyone brings up the “clutch” word. Fans and old-school writers tend to lean in the opposite direction though in their universal criticism of how he “doesn’t get it,” how he “sucks when it counts,” or how he “has no rings.”

I tend to come down somewhere in the middle of those two extremes. Even I was shocked though at the way he passed out of the big moment last night. Before that infamous possession I remarked to my fiancee about how important a moment it was in the broader context of the NBA. Should LeBron make the shot, it would do wonders for his reputation in the basketball community, or so I told her. Never in a million years though did I think he would first pass off to Deron Williams for the big shot, then refuse to go at Kobe Bryant and eventually cough up an awful cross court pass that Blake Griffin would steal to seal the game (or pass the ball in with 1.1 seconds left to his teammate Dwyane Wade when he could have redeemed the turnover, but that’s neither here nor there).

I was so upset I actually leapt off my couch and started taunting LeBron by yelling and pointing at my television. I have no idea what overcame me and it’s rather embarrassing to admit. I guess the basketball snob in me is just reaching a critical breaking point with the continuous failings of the best basketball player alive in the biggest basketball moments. You can say it really doesn’t matter and that the game was just an exhibition match anyway, but that doesn’t do it justice.

Reading Adrian Wojnarowski this morning, you’d even learn that Kobe was BEGGING LeBron to take the shot and he still refused to pull the trigger. And it’s not like this is some anomaly. It’s a trend of continuous letdowns. It’s so frustrating so let’s get this over with and come up with any kind of a conclusion.

As a sports nerd, I’ve come to overwhelmingly trust the opinions of two groups of people when it comes to sports analysis. The first is the advanced stats community, who as I mentioned are very quick to defend LeBron. The second is the actual players though. They know the real story of the league and the teams and the players and it often never reaches our ears. They know that LeBron James is still afraid of the big moment. They know he doesn’t want the rock when it matters. They know that it’s going to take a Herculean effort by Dwyane Wade for this Heat team to break through and win a title. Don’t you remember DeShawn Stevenson openly taunting LeBron in last year’s Finals with Shawn Marion? No seriously though, look at the faces of LeBron’s peers in this video.

Some of the better details: Carter held it in his indoor basketball court and had a pretty cool message displayed on the scoreboard, David Stern and Mark Cuban were in the house, and Obama cracked jokes about almost all of them. From Politico via John Ourand’s Twitter:

Motorcade arrived at Vince Carter’s Orlando mansion at 8:50 and the pool was brought into the in-home, full-sized basketball court where the fundraiser is being held. A few minutes later, the president entered the the room, only half of which was filled with tables.

The electronic scoreboard reads 20:12, with the home and guest scores at 44. The shot clock says it’s period 2.